Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 and Galaxy Beam use ST-Ericsson NovaThor chips. Ace 2 is available now

ST-Ericsson announced that two of Samsung’s latest Android smartphones – the Galaxy Ace 2 i8160 and the Galaxy Beam i8530 – are using its NovaThor U8500 chips. The Ace 2 comes with a dual-core NovaThor CPU clocked at 800MHz, while the Galaxy Beam has a 1GHz dual-core NovaThor CPU.

The Galaxy Ace 2 (pictured below) has been released in the UK via the Carphone Warehouse only today – although it was supposed to arrive there in April. The British retailer is offering the handset for free on various contracts. The new Ace, which runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread, is also available in Germany, where it’s sold by Amazon for prices starting at €283.99.

The Galaxy Beam isn’t available yet, but it should be starting this quarter. It will come with Android 2.3, a built-in nHD projector, and a 4 inch WVGA display.

The Galaxy Ace 2 and Galaxy Beam aren’t Samsung’s first smartphones to use ST-Ericsson’s NovaThor U8500. The first one was the Galaxy S Advance i9070, launched last month.